


科挙

by GraphDesino



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Family Drama, Gen, Historical Hetalia, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 02:11:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10452624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraphDesino/pseuds/GraphDesino
Summary: Beginning in the Tang Dynasty, the Imperial Chinese government began requiring all its officials, regardless of class or background, to pass a grueling nine-day-long ethics examination. Wang Yao held his own students to an equivalent standard. Set in ~1000 A.D.





	

* * *

When the results were published, and a long scroll bearing the names of the lucky few was hung up just outside the Imperial examination hall, Kiku did not even bother to check. He hadn’t needed to wait all winter. He’d known from the last shaky stroke of the last shaky character.   

The exams themselves were a torture of tortures. He could usually calm himself well enough to endure the first few days with his intellect intact, but by the seventh or eighth, his knowledge of the Analects had left him entirely. The exam booths were bitterly cold at night, but his inner robe clung to him, sweat-glued to his clammy skin. He was paralyzed, certain he’d shriek or burst into sobs if it went on a moment longer. Yet he was equally certain he would collapse if he ever dared to stop working. His hand simply wrote, spewing out characters, until the parchment before him had been thoroughly marred with ink. All the while his mind conjured up images of death, which he grew increasingly fantastic and violent as the end of the exam period approached. 

Three days left, two days left, one. The hours ticked by unceasingly. Could he hang himself with his _obi,_ he thought desperately, before the exam proctor noticed? If he leapt up from his desk and ran straight to the palace gardens, might he still be able to gorge himself on golden wolf’s bane flowers, and so stop his pounding heart? Was there still time?  
  
Inevitably his finished work was an inelegant, rambling slur of quotations and arguments. A single incorrect or illegible character could be grounds for failure; Kiku had never even managed to finish the last required ‘leg’ of his essay, let alone make it through the mortifying oral exam. With each attempt his anxiety worsened. His siblings had passed ages ago. He was still a child, yes, and most of the scholars who sat for the exam beside him were well into their 50’s – but they were _mortal_ _men_. He had eternity, and it was still not enough. 

* * *

“You have failed five times now. Have you anything to say for yourself?”  
  
A cool spring breeze wafted through the pavilion, the sunlight glinting off each blood-red laquered pillar. The air was thick and humid, a sign of heavy rains to come, but for the moment all was bright and picturesque. The small stone table inside, normally reserved for _gō_ , was now covered in strips and sheets of parchment. From sunrise to sunset, they had reviewed his slipshod essay, dissecting every misquote, removing every logical fallacy, ironing out every philosophical contradiction. Kiku felt as though he’d been flogged, each dash of Yao’s pen like a stroke of his cane. They would then read each corrected passage aloud, together, over and over, until Kiku could repeat it on command – and then _again_ , and _again,_ until the words rolled fluidly off of his tongue, rather than in his monotone staccato stutter.  
  
Yao’s critiques were constant and chafing. But it wasn’t what he said, it was _never_ what he said. It was the imposing figure he cut, hunched over his papers like a dragon looped around its pearl, and the penetrating serpentine cruelty of his stare. It was his voice, sharp and coercive like the incessant commands he delivered: _Again, again, read it again._ And, worst, it was the crushing sense of futility that pervaded the whole exercise.  
  
“It is impossible,” Kiku finally whispered, nearly cowering.  
  
“It isn’t.”  
  
“It is, it is,” he pleaded. “For me it is.”  
  
“I would not accept a pupil I judged to be incapable of learning.”  
  
“Then I must insult your judgement.”  
  
In an instant Yao was standing his side, and Kiku felt his teacher’s hand sear across his cheek. He recoiled with a silent gasp, his shoulders hunching in a full-body flinch.  
  
“Don’t say such things,” Yao spat. “Would you be better off now if I had left you as you were, illiterate and barbarous?”  
  
“No.” Softly, tonelessly. A mere statement of fact.  
  
“And _are_ you illiterate and barbarous now?”  
  
Kiku lifted his head, daring to meet Yao’s gaze for the briefest of moments. “Am I?”  
  
“You are not.”  
  
“But I am not learned, either.”  
  
“No,” Yao sighed, his reproachfulness already starting to dissolve into resignation, “you are not. Not yet. _The Master said, 'I was not born with knowledge but, being fond of antiquity, I am quick to seek it.’_ Present ignorance does not guarantee future ignorance. All you must do is study diligently and follow the example set by your betters.”  
  
“By _you_.” Said with all the filial affection of a corpse.  
  
Yao’s disappointment was palpable. His arms fell limply at his sides, his silken sleeves collapsing like the iridescent folded wings of an insect. These things were supposed to go unsaid, Kiku knew. There was no need to question the immutable laws of nature. The sun rose in the East, the trees flowered and changed colors with the seasons, and China was the center of the earth.  
  
“Yes, 小菊,” Yao murmured, voice weighty with some unidentifiable emotion. “By me.”  
  
They continued the lesson as before, though more quietly now, until the crash of rainless thunder could be heard in the near distance. 


End file.
